Good morning from London, where I spent the weekend. You’ll find a range of tips and “overheard” items at the end of Playbook.

NEW EU AVIATION STRATEGY WILL LAUNCH TODAY: After three decades of liberalization that has democratized air travel in Europe (think Ryanair, EasyJet, Wizz Air and the like), the EU needs a new trick to confront mounting aircraft manufacturing competition from Asia and carrier competition from the Gulf. The Commission will announce a plan at noon today.

ACTIVISTS TO TIMMERMANS — PUT UP OR SHUT UP ON FEMINISM: Many understood (and just as many disagreed) when the Commission this year withdrew a proposed Maternity Leave Directive that was going nowhere because of national government disagreement. But equality advocates are starting to lose their patience over promises of a new broader equality strategy. As EU ministers for gender equality meet for today’s social policy council, they will discuss a mere staff working document, and not the full-blown EU strategy that ministers themselves and campaigners have asked for. “It is not good enough,” Joanna Maycock of the European Women’s Lobby tells Playbook. She says that if Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans wants to declare “I’m a feminist,” as he did in September, then he needs to back it up with a proper strategy. Here’s a video the group has made to ram home the point: http://bit.ly/1NvhEoT

QUIET EUROGROUP MEETING TODAY: The Eurogroup will be briefed on the activities of the Single Supervisory Mechanism and on the results of the post-program surveillance mission to Ireland. It will also discuss Greece, where the news is better than expected: Banks in Greece need about €15 billion less from the European Stability Mechanism than was planned for. “Our loan volume is reduced to €71 billion,” said Klaus Regling, head of the rescue fund. Meanwhile a new study from the Bertelsmann Foundation argues that convergence in prices, competitiveness, and external balance (measured on the basis of the current account) is needed, otherwise the eurozone can never stabilize. http://bit.ly/1lfx3zv

FAR FROM QUIET COPYRIGHT REFORM WEDNESDAY: Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip hates it when he’s prevented from watching his favorite football matches and movies because of “geo-blocking” (the licensing of content on a national instead of pan-EU or global basis). Wednesday is his chance to change all that, but many creative types have been fuming all year at the prospect of reforms. The Independent Film and Television Alliance is the first in the complaint line today: It says in a written statement that it is open to letting people view content while they are temporarily out of the country they bought it in, but otherwise insists that major legal changes will blow-up film and television financing and leave us only with a thin gruel of Hollywood blockbusters to watch.

**A message from ALDE: You think European politics is boring? We beg to differ.**

FRENCH REGIONAL ELECTIONS …

‘OLD SYSTEM IS DEAD,’ DECLARES LE PEN THE YOUNGEST AS NATIONAL FRONT BREAKS THROUGH: Parties from the left, including the Socialists and Greens, received around 35 percent of the vote. The mainstream conservatives — Les Républicains and others — won between 30 and 32 percent, and the National Front won between 29 and 31 percent. But the real bombshell is the FN finished first in six of the 13 regional votes. It also won up to 90 percent of the vote in some small villages. http://bit.ly/1m5XE1W

TAKEAWAYS ON FRENCH REGIONAL ELECTION RESULTS: Whoever wins in a second round of run-off elections next week, Pierre Briançon reports that much of the damage to the French political establishment has already been done.

Marine Le Pen’s mainstream push pays off: Set to run the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region centered on Lille, after winning 40 percent of the vote in the first round, she’ll just be part of a dynasty after her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen did even better in Provence with 42 percent.

Left-right may have to join forces to stop Le Pen: The Socialist party decided late Sunday to withdraw its candidates from the second round of voting in regions where they had finished third in the initial round. But Nicolas Sarkozy’s Les Républicains party rejects this tactic. The division may hurt them both. Marine Le Pen, for example, needs to win just one in six of the voters who did not already back her Sunday, in order to get from 40 percent to 50 percent in the second round.

Hollande and Sarkozy are both losers. However, the strong showing of Hollande’s popular Defense Minister Jean-Yves le Drian in the Brittany region shows that members of the government seen as good at their job can still attract voters.

What happens in France doesn’t stay in France. Other leaders are worried this morning as they contemplate the Le Pen juggernaut. http://politi.co/21HYxhI

NATIONAL FRONT — TIME TO TAKE IT SERIOUSLY, SAYS LE MONDE: France’s paper of record says the party should be taken seriously, then systematically goes through its policy proposals (bringing back the franc, lowering energy prices, etc.) and explains why they would be terrible ideas. It makes a larger point about Le Pen’s overture to republican values being a sham and asks voters not give in to their deepest fears, which it says the party preys on. http://bit.ly/1SHVgbW

HOW THE MIGHT OF THE RIGHT IS PLAYING ACROSS EUROPE: Left-wing publication Courrier International takes a tour of newspaper reactions. http://bit.ly/1TQodDJ

MIGRATION — WAITING FOR JUNCKER, WEIGHING LE PEN: New Commission proposals on handling refugees are due next week. How exactly will refugee resettlement work, and can it work at all unless the external border is rapidly secured? A letter to the Commission from German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière and his French colleague and friend Bernard Cazeneuve will be making for worried reading this morning in the Berlaymont. The pair write: “If the security checks at the EU’s external borders will not be significantly expanded, the measures taken in September decisions for relocation of the public could be questioned.”

PNR — DEAL OR NO DEAL: Just when it seemed that a deal on the passenger name records system was going to elude us once again (it’s been five years of games so far), justice and home affairs ministers agreed to the demand of Timothy Kirkhope, the Conservative rapporteur from the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee, that “unmasked” data, which hadn’t been stripped of identifying personal information, should only be kept for six months instead of Council’s preferred nine. This face-saving act allows all parties to argue they got most of what they wanted (the national governments avoided the mandatory information-sharing that might actually make the system function fully; the Parliament looks like it is better protecting your privacy, without actually fundamentally protecting it).

PARLIAMENT AND #DIESELGATE: MEPS from five political groups (S&D, ALDE, Greens, Green-Left and EFDD) in the European Parliament want the Commission to submit “without delay” a revamped proposal for phasing in new EU car emissions tests, opposing a controversial vote by EU countries at the end of October, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. MEPs from the EPP, the Parliament’s largest group, and the ECR, have not joined in. Next votes: ENVI committee December 14 and plenary in January 2016. Anca Gurzu has more for POLITICO Pro: http://politi.co/1SHYA78

ICYMI — BIG BANKS FEND OFF ANTITRUST PROBE: Commissioner Margrethe Vestager proved Friday she can both hold ’em and fold ’em. The largest investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley and 10 others, have beaten back charges from the European Commission that they colluded to stifle competition in the market for financial derivatives (the notorious credit default swaps) in the run-up to the financial crisis that landed in 2007-8. It is unusual for the Commission to drop a case at this stage in the proceedings, said Jean-François Bellis, partner at law firm Van Bael & Bellis. “It happens, but it is rare.” Nicholas Hirst reports: http://politi.co/1RtzBWI

ITALY ICYMI — ROME PREPARES FOR HOLY YEAR TERROR: Elisabetta Povoledo in the New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1IOpHaZ

POLAND — COAL COMFORT: “Coal is the basis of our sovereignty, and nobody has the right to take it away from us. 100,000 jobs in Poland depend on the coal,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said Friday to mark the day of Saint Barbara, a festival of Polish miners.

SPAIN — THE OLD GUARD PROTECTING MARIANO RAJOY: About 14 million people over the age of 55 are eligible to vote in December, compared to 7.6 million under 35. Diego Torres dives into the demographics and what they mean on the streets of Spain’s villages, ahead of national elections this month. http://politi.co/1LXK71b

US — NEW YORK TIMES FRONT-PAGE EDITORIAL FOR GUN CONTROL: For the first time in 95 years the paper ran an editorial on its front page, to campaign against America’s “gun epidemic.” http://nyti.ms/1XUr1QB

COP21 CORNER … There’s now a formal negotiating text, and informal meetings around that text began at 4 pm Sunday.

SHIPS, PLANES ON SHAKY GROUND: Sara Stefanini reports on how a climate deal may involve pain for the world’s aviation and maritime industries. http://politi.co/1R4gDGL

BEYOND THE CLIMATE DEAL: The most noteworthy announcement over the weekend is an African Forest and Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) which aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded and deforested land (about the size of Germany) in Africa by 2030.

STAR WARS: Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Redford were all battling for attention at the summit yesterday. http://bit.ly/1Q9wVhu

BRITS ARE TALKING ABOUT …

YOU AIN’T NO MUSLIM BRUV: Londoners united against a terror attempt Saturday night, and behind the man who called out to the would-be attacker “You ain’t no Muslim” after the attacker branding his violence as Islamic and said it was done “for Syria.” http://ind.pn/1TQqvmj

JEREMY CORBYN AND ENTOURAGE: The hate-hate relationship of Labour’s new spin doctor Seamus Milne with the media. http://politi.co/1PFfV2S

HILLARY BENN’S SYRIA SPEECH: Moderates in the party are now talking up former minister Benn as the moderate who could replace Corbyn. Former ministerial colleagues of Benn that I spoke to applaud the speech but aren’t buying the hype. http://bit.ly/1NDLW4J

THE WEIWEI EXHIBITION: Overhead — “great for an hour of art. which is how I like my art.” The exhibition at the Royal Academy closes this coming Sunday. http://bit.ly/1PNTyrY

POLAND’S NEW GOVERNMENT: Poles of the policy and political persuasion in London are abuzz with rumors of their new government seeking to put Donald Tusk on trial (the potential charge changes depending on the person you talk to) through to a supposed wish to obtain nuclear weapons for Poland (leaving coal-hating greens unsure whether to laugh or cry).

CULTURE VULTURES: Google’s Cultural Institute keeps embedding itself on Europe’s cultural scenes, with two Brussels organizations next in line, the Brussels Royal Theater La Monnaie (the Opera) and the European Festivals Association (declaration: my partner works for the Festivals Association, but is not the source of the tip). It’s a virtual collaboration: “New indoor Street View imagery gives you an all-access backstage pass to each venue. Wander through the wig workshop at Brussels’ opera house, look beneath the stage at the historic underground arches of the Fundação Teatro Municipal in São Paulo, or zoom in on ultra-high resolution Gigapixel costume images at France’s National Centre for Stage Costume.” http://bit.ly/21ryQBI

TONIGHT’S HOT TICKET: AT&T plans to “close a year of intense work on transatlantic issues and honor Juan José Gómez Camacho (Mexican ambassador to the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg)” with a private party at the Art Gallery of Isabelle de Borchgrave on Chaussée de Vleurgat where guests will tour the exhibition: “Feathers – Impressions du Brésil.”

PROMOTED: Marit Sillavee is joining the cabinet of Jean-Claude Junkcer to be policy and communications assistant to Martin Selmayr, also working with Annabelle Arki.

BIRTHDAYS: Ramona Nicole Mănescu MEP. Konrad Szymański, Poland’s minister for European affairs and Rajeed Dey, CEO of Eternships, celebrated yesterday. Belated wishes to Martin Selmayr, chief of staff to Commission President Juncker who had his birthday Friday (I may have forgotten you Martin, but your fans didn’t — by 7:26 am Friday I already had messages advising of my omission.)

**A message from ALDE: Venezuela is a beautiful country, but ruled by a nasty autocrat. We can change this if all eyes are on Venezuela.**